/* * Simple 802.11 rate-control algorithm for iPXE. * * Copyright (c) 2009 Joshua Oreman . * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as * published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the * License, or any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU * General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA * 02110-1301, USA. */ FILE_LICENCE ( GPL2_OR_LATER ); #include #include /** * @file * * Simple 802.11 rate-control algorithm */ /** @page rc80211 Rate control philosophy * * We want to maximize our transmission speed, to the extent that we * can do that without dropping undue numbers of packets. We also * don't want to take up very much code space, so our algorithm has to * be pretty simple * * When we receive a packet, we know what rate it was transmitted at, * and whether it had to be retransmitted to get to us. * * When we send a packet, we hear back how many times it had to be * retried to get through, and whether it got through at all. * * Indications of TX success are more reliable than RX success, but RX * information helps us know where to start. * * To handle all of this, we keep for each rate and each direction (TX * and RX separately) some state information for the most recent * packets on that rate and the number of packets for which we have * information. The state is a 32-bit unsigned integer in which two * bits represent a packet: 11 if it went through well, 10 if it went * through with one retry, 01 if it went through with more than one * retry, or 00 if it didn't go through at all. We define the * "goodness" for a particular (rate, direction) combination as the * sum of all the 2-bit fields, times 33, divided by the number of * 2-bit fields containing valid information (16 except when we're * starting out). The number produced is between 0 and 99; we use -1 * for rates with less than 4 RX packets or 1 TX, as an indicator that * we do not have enough information to rely on them. * * In deciding which rates are best, we find the weighted average of * TX and RX goodness, where the weighting is by number of packets * with data and TX packets are worth 4 times as much as RX packets. * The weighted average is called "net goodness" and is also a number * between 0 and 99. If 3 consecutive packets fail transmission * outright, we automatically ratchet down the rate; otherwise, we * switch to the best rate whenever the current rate's goodness falls * below some threshold, and try increasing our rate when the goodness * is very high. * * This system is optimized for iPXE's style of usage. Because normal * operation always involves receiving something, we'll make our way * to the best rate pretty quickly. We tend to follow the lead of the * sending AP in choosing rates, but we won't use rates for long that * don't work well for us in transmission. We assume iPXE won't be * running for long enough that rate patterns will change much, so we * don't have to keep time counters or the like. And if this doesn't * work well in practice there are many ways it could be tweaked. * * To avoid staying at 1Mbps for a long time, we don't track any * transmitted packets until we've set our rate based on received * packets. */ /** Two-bit packet status indicator for a packet with no retries */ #define RC_PKT_OK 0x3 /** Two-bit packet status indicator for a packet with one retry */ #define RC_PKT_RETRIED_ONCE 0x2 /** Two-bit packet status indicator for a TX packet with multiple retries * * It is not possible to tell whether an RX packet had one or multiple * retries; we rely instead on the fact that failed RX packets won't * get to us at all, so if we receive a lot of RX packets on a certain * rate it must be pretty good. */ #define RC_PKT_RETRIED_MULTI 0x1 /** Two-bit packet status indicator for a TX packet that was never ACKed * * It is not possible to tell whether an RX packet was setn if it * didn't get through to us, but if we don't see one we won't increase * the goodness for its rate. This asymmetry is part of why TX packets * are weighted much more heavily than RX. */ #define RC_PKT_FAILED 0x0 /** Number of times to weight TX packets more heavily than RX packets */ #define RC_TX_FACTOR 4 /** Number of consecutive failed TX packets that cause an automatic rate drop */ #define RC_TX_EMERG_FAIL 3 /** Minimum net goodness below which we will search for a better rate */ #define RC_GOODNESS_MIN 85 /** Maximum net goodness above which we will try to increase our rate */ #define RC_GOODNESS_MAX 95 /** Minimum (num RX + @c RC_TX_FACTOR * num TX) to use a certain rate */ #define RC_UNCERTAINTY_THRESH 4 /** TX direction */ #define TX 0 /** RX direction */ #define RX 1 /** A rate control context */ struct rc80211_ctx { /** Goodness state for each rate, TX and RX */ u32 goodness[2][NET80211_MAX_RATES]; /** Number of packets recorded for each rate */ u8 count[2][NET80211_MAX_RATES]; /** Indication of whether we've set the device rate yet */ int started; /** Counter of all packets sent and received */ int packets; }; /** * Initialize rate-control algorithm * * @v dev 802.11 device * @ret ctx Rate-control context, to be stored in @c dev->rctl */ struct rc80211_ctx * rc80211_init ( struct net80211_device *dev __unused ) { struct rc80211_ctx *ret = zalloc ( sizeof ( *ret ) ); return ret; } /** * Calculate net goodness for a certain rate * * @v ctx Rate-control context * @v rate_idx Index of rate to calculate net goodness for */ static int rc80211_calc_net_goodness ( struct rc80211_ctx *ctx, int rate_idx ) { int sum[2], num[2], dir, pkt; for ( dir = 0; dir < 2; dir++ ) { u32 good = ctx->goodness[dir][rate_idx]; num[dir] = ctx->count[dir][rate_idx]; sum[dir] = 0; for ( pkt = 0; pkt < num[dir]; pkt++ ) sum[dir] += ( good >> ( 2 * pkt ) ) & 0x3; } if ( ( num[TX] * RC_TX_FACTOR + num[RX] ) < RC_UNCERTAINTY_THRESH ) return -1; return ( 33 * ( sum[TX] * RC_TX_FACTOR + sum[RX] ) / ( num[TX] * RC_TX_FACTOR + num[RX] ) ); } /** * Determine the best rate to switch to and return it * * @v dev 802.11 device * @ret rate_idx Index of the best rate to switch to */ static int rc80211_pick_best ( struct net80211_device *dev ) { struct rc80211_ctx *ctx = dev->rctl; int best_net_good = 0, best_rate = -1, i; for ( i = 0; i < dev->nr_rates; i++ ) { int net_good = rc80211_calc_net_goodness ( ctx, i ); if ( net_good > best_net_good || ( best_net_good > RC_GOODNESS_MIN && net_good > RC_GOODNESS_MIN ) ) { best_net_good = net_good; best_rate = i; } } if ( best_rate >= 0 ) { int old_good = rc80211_calc_net_goodness ( ctx, dev->rate ); if ( old_good != best_net_good ) DBGC ( ctx, "802.11 RC %p switching from goodness " "%d to %d\n", ctx, old_good, best_net_good ); ctx->started = 1; return best_rate; } return dev->rate; } /** * Set 802.11 device rate * * @v dev 802.11 device * @v rate_idx Index of rate to switch to * * This is a thin wrapper around net80211_set_rate_idx to insert a * debugging message where appropriate. */ static inline void rc80211_set_rate ( struct net80211_device *dev, int rate_idx ) { DBGC ( dev->rctl, "802.11 RC %p changing rate %d->%d Mbps\n", dev->rctl, dev->rates[dev->rate] / 10, dev->rates[rate_idx] / 10 ); net80211_set_rate_idx ( dev, rate_idx ); } /** * Check rate-control state and change rate if necessary * * @v dev 802.11 device */ static void rc80211_maybe_set_new ( struct net80211_device *dev ) { struct rc80211_ctx *ctx = dev->rctl; int net_good; net_good = rc80211_calc_net_goodness ( ctx, dev->rate ); if ( ! ctx->started ) { rc80211_set_rate ( dev, rc80211_pick_best ( dev ) ); return; } if ( net_good < 0 ) /* insufficient data */ return; if ( net_good > RC_GOODNESS_MAX && dev->rate + 1 < dev->nr_rates ) { int higher = rc80211_calc_net_goodness ( ctx, dev->rate + 1 ); if ( higher > net_good || higher < 0 ) rc80211_set_rate ( dev, dev->rate + 1 ); else rc80211_set_rate ( dev, rc80211_pick_best ( dev ) ); } if ( net_good < RC_GOODNESS_MIN ) { rc80211_set_rate ( dev, rc80211_pick_best ( dev ) ); } } /** * Update rate-control state * * @v dev 802.11 device * @v direction One of the direction constants TX or RX * @v rate_idx Index of rate at which packet was sent or received * @v retries Number of times packet was retried before success * @v failed If nonzero, the packet failed to get through */ static void rc80211_update ( struct net80211_device *dev, int direction, int rate_idx, int retries, int failed ) { struct rc80211_ctx *ctx = dev->rctl; u32 goodness = ctx->goodness[direction][rate_idx]; if ( ctx->count[direction][rate_idx] < 16 ) ctx->count[direction][rate_idx]++; goodness <<= 2; if ( failed ) goodness |= RC_PKT_FAILED; else if ( retries > 1 ) goodness |= RC_PKT_RETRIED_MULTI; else if ( retries ) goodness |= RC_PKT_RETRIED_ONCE; else goodness |= RC_PKT_OK; ctx->goodness[direction][rate_idx] = goodness; ctx->packets++; rc80211_maybe_set_new ( dev ); } /** * Update rate-control state for transmitted packet * * @v dev 802.11 device * @v retries Number of times packet was transmitted before success * @v rc Return status code for transmission */ void rc80211_update_tx ( struct net80211_device *dev, int retries, int rc ) { struct rc80211_ctx *ctx = dev->rctl; if ( ! ctx->started ) return; rc80211_update ( dev, TX, dev->rate, retries, rc ); /* Check if the last RC_TX_EMERG_FAIL packets have all failed */ if ( ! ( ctx->goodness[TX][dev->rate] & ( ( 1 << ( 2 * RC_TX_EMERG_FAIL ) ) - 1 ) ) ) { if ( dev->rate == 0 ) DBGC ( dev->rctl, "802.11 RC %p saw %d consecutive " "failed TX, but cannot lower rate any further\n", dev->rctl, RC_TX_EMERG_FAIL ); else { DBGC ( dev->rctl, "802.11 RC %p lowering rate (%d->%d " "Mbps) due to %d consecutive TX failures\n", dev->rctl, dev->rates[dev->rate] / 10, dev->rates[dev->rate - 1] / 10, RC_TX_EMERG_FAIL ); rc80211_set_rate ( dev, dev->rate - 1 ); } } } /** * Update rate-control state for received packet * * @v dev 802.11 device * @v retry Whether the received packet had been retransmitted * @v rate Rate at which packet was received, in 100 kbps units */ void rc80211_update_rx ( struct net80211_device *dev, int retry, u16 rate ) { int ridx; for ( ridx = 0; ridx < dev->nr_rates && dev->rates[ridx] != rate; ridx++ ) ; if ( ridx >= dev->nr_rates ) return; /* couldn't find the rate */ rc80211_update ( dev, RX, ridx, retry, 0 ); } /** * Free rate-control context * * @v ctx Rate-control context */ void rc80211_free ( struct rc80211_ctx *ctx ) { free ( ctx ); }